About

Hello and welcome to Pineapple and Coconut. A 16+ year old recipe blog with all kinds of fun things to make from breakfasts, dinners, cocktails, lots of baked goods and everything in between. You will find recipes here for beginners to more advanced cooks and bakers. My recipes will help you become a better cook, baker and mixologist.

I am so happy you are all here to make my recipes!

A little about me first:

I am a wife and a mom.  My husband and my  daughters are every thing to me, they are my official taste testers, dishwashers and occasional hand models.  I am a photographer first, cook and baker second. Photography my main passion.  A friend urged me to get into blogging years ago because of my photos of my baked goods. I also love photographing my travels, landscapes and hummingbirds. I was in the medical field for a long time in radiology, so some form of photography or another has always been a part of my life. I no longer work in medicine, devoting all my time now to my children and husband, photography and this blog. 

I am a self taught baker and cook. I have taken a few baking and cooking classes to sharpen my skills and learn trickier techniques, but no official culinary or pastry schooling. I highly recommend taking a knife skills class, it will help you save so much time with recipe prep work. 

I have been cooking and baking most of my life, helping my mom in the kitchen when I was very young, watching my grandma make her famous Austrian apple strudel and many other German and Austrian recipes from her family as well as my grandpa's. I was lucky enough to inherit their recipe box full of amazing German, Austrian and Bavarian recipes, some I have already added to my blog, many more to come. 

About Pineapple and Coconut:

The title of my blog comes from my love of the fruits as well as they were the nicknames of my girls' when I was pregnant with them before we came up with their actual names. There are these funny charts in doctors offices that equate fetus sizes to different fruits, and since I love all things tropical I figured why not a pineapple for the first baby and went with coconut for the second.  And that is the story behind the name. 

 I believe in only using the freshest most natural ingredients available, sticking to locally sourced as much as possible, via farmers markets and our food c0-op when I can. Using produce when it is at the peak of its season for best flavor, but also knowing how to enhance flavor off off-season produce as well. I love to make a tomato sauce from scratch, whip up from scratch waffles for a weekend breakfast, squeeze my own juices for a cocktail. This is a from scratch as much as possible recipe blog. I do use convenience items from time to time such as canned tomatoes when tomatoes aren't in season but for the most part I love from scratch recipes. 

What kind of recipes are on Pineapple and Coconut?

My recipes are heavily influenced by Hawaiian and Polynesian cuisines from my many travels. I love to try to recreate meals at home that I had on holidays.  I am originally from Southern California so you will also see a lot of recipes influenced from my life growing up on the beach, lots of seafood, fresh ingredients, produce from California shows up a lot in my recipes. You will also find recipes from my Austrian heritage as well as from my husband's Italian and German heritages. I also have a love of Australian and New Zealand pastries and desserts so you will find my versions of many of those here as well. This blog is a a hodge-podge of many cultures and cuisines that I love. 

I am constantly testing recipes. Some never make it to the blog, some eventually do years later. I am a huge believer in testing recipes many times before releasing into the wild so readers will have recipe success.

I don't jump ahead of seasons and start posting fall recipes in mid summer (Just say no to pumpkin in August!). I fully embrace summertime until the very last second. My dream is a year round summer, so that reflects in a lot of my recipes.  But near the end of summer when I am very much over the Vegas heat you will see more fall recipes start to creep in such as apple and squash, lots more baked goods and towards the end of the year holidays I bake a ton of cookies. I love to bake Christmas cookies. 

Often times I will go on a kick of a single ingredient such as avocado, passionfruit or Meyer lemon and do a series of those ingredients as the star of the recipe until I am ready to move on. I do like to work around seasonal produce. 

Tell me more about your recipes, how do you explain them best for recipe success?

Each recipe is broken down in the body of the post. I will include historical context and cultural origins for recipes from around the world. I feel it is very important to know the background and cultural context of many recipes. Recipes are borrowed and adapted through time and location. Ingredients change based on what is available.  I think it is best to acknowledge a recipe's origins when applicable and always give credit to origins. And never ever ever add pineapple to a dish just to call it "Hawaiian". Pineapples aren't even from Hawaii!!  

I also include a breakdown of ingredients and their uses, why I use what I use and I also include any substitutions that I have tested. I will tag brands I use to show you what I like best, you don't have to use what I use, but I show what the recipes have been tested with. 

I also include techniques and terms useful to home cooks and bakers for every day cooking along with any special equipment needed for recipe success such as a digital food scale, a candy thermometer, specific storage containers, baking equipment and more. The proper tools help for better recipe success. 

I also have several frequently asked questions about a specific ingredient or technique with the best answers I can offer to help achieve recipe success. My goal is for you all to keep coming back for recipes you like to make time and time again as well as try my newest recipes. 

Thanks again for stopping by, hope you stay a while and check out my recipes and maybe even try some! Let me know if you have any questions about any of these recipes. I try to answer emails, blog comments as quickly as I can. 

Aloha!

Shanna

All recipes and photographs are mine (Shanna Schad/Pineapple and Coconut) unless otherwise stated. My photographs are rights protected. Copying, borrowing, recipe adapting, is not allowed without permission and only with attribution to my site as well as links back to my site. No permission is given to copy my recipes in their entirety on any other website or social media. Any copying of pictures of my children is strictly prohibited. 

All blog comments and emails are filtered and need to be approved by me. Anything inappropriate, rude, calling me names, telling me to "just shut up and give me the recipe" will be deleted and your IP address will be added to the block list immediately, let's keep it nice!